The pains of a sales manager

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The pains of a sales manager

Friday, August 14th, 2009

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44% of sales managers cited getting their team to do prospecting activities as their number one challenge.

Recently, I Love Rewards did some investigative work to uncover the pains of today’s sales managers so we could provide best practices for boosting sales team performance and morale during tough economic times. After surveying sales managers across different industries, the following two findings stood out:

44% of sales managers cited getting their team to do prospecting activities as their number one challenge.
11% of sales managers said keeping their sales team motivated was a significant challenge.

This got us thinking; how can managers create an environment that keeps their team’s head up and their interests aligned?

Motivate employees to fill their sales funnel

When times are tough, sales are far and few between and take longer to close. It gets difficult for salespeople to see the light at the end of tunnel so managers must motivate them along the way.

Incentives are a good way to drive prospecting activities, such as lead tracking and cold calling quotas, which help fill sales funnels. Using incentives to motivate prospecting activities, followed by commission to reward the sales close, is an excellent way sales managers can drive repeat positive behavior in their salespeople.

Four steps to creating a successful sales incentive program

1. Define the prospecting activities that build your sales funnel. For example, sales team members reaching desired number of calls per day and number of meetings per week.

2. Select incentives and rewards that match your sales teams’ preferences and your culture. We recommend giving your employees the opportunity to choose their rewards rather than pre-selecting merchandise like company branded goods. “No one works harder for a coffee mug” – Razor Suleman, CEO, I Love Rewards.

3. Make the incentive a PIC – positive, immediate and certain. It’s in a salesperson’s nature to react quickly to challenge and excitement, so ensure you cater to their innate motivators by delivering the reward and recognition directly after the activity is performed.

4. Don’t forget to include the number one ingredient of a successful sales incentive program: Recognition. Public recognition goes a long way with salespeople. It puts them in the spotlight which motivates peers to also strive for recognition and helps support a healthy competitive sales team environment.